


neither advice nor salt

by alljuststars (allthelight)



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Humour, Light Angst, OCs - Freeform, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24812506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/alljuststars
Summary: ''“I liked her,” Marjory declares as she stands at the small sink, filling the kettle for one of her numerous cups of tea. “She was nice.”“Very nice,” Etta agrees. “Very charming. Such lovely manners. Unlike some people.”“And so pretty as well. Excellent posture.”“You both only met her for about ten minutes,” Townsend snaps. “I don’t think you know her well enough to be making character judgements.”'Edward Townsend and an interrogation from MI6's best ladies on his attachment to a certain Abigail Cameron.
Relationships: Abigail Cameron/Edward Townsend
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	neither advice nor salt

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea in the shower out of nowhere and it ended up being almost 5K, so I won't blame you if you're like what the fudge is this, but I hope you'll take a chance on it all the same. I just had the thought of him rocking back up to work after a mission with Abby and these two mother/grandmother figures interrogating him and trying to make him see sense. I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope someone enjoys reading it!
> 
> Also I don't know why I always imagine whatever happened in Buenos Aires to be darker than probably what happened. I think it's the angst lover in me. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy and are all well :)

Edward Townsend has been with MI6 for many years, and during that time he has managed to get used to many things. The broken toaster at HQ that always burns one side of the bread whilst leaving one side completely white. The computer at Charing Cross Station that has a missing F key that nobody has replaced in the past ten years. And his personal grievance, the tailor in the operative clothing department that always leaves the garments a little too tight in some places, and far too loose in others.

What he has not gotten used to, however, and may never get used to, is the chattering he must always experience whenever he walks back into his office after a mission.

“Oh, look who has returned to us,” Etta says, looking at him from over the thick black rims of her glasses. “I was starting to think you’d never show.”

“Leave him be,” Marjory chides her, pulling out Townsend’s swivel chair for him. “He’s clearly had a long mission. Can you not see his face?”

Townsend rolls his eyes. “Glad to see some things haven’t changed in my absence, ladies.”

This office is a relatively airy room and should be more than enough for the three of them, but it always seems too small, and it’s got nothing to do with the sheets and sheets of paper that are plastered across the wall, or the whiteboard that sits at the front of the room.

Etta answers as though Townsend hasn’t spoken, which is another thing that hasn’t changed apparently, and something he has frequently wished would. “Yes, I can see it alright. I’ve seen torture victims that looked as though they had more sleep than what you have.”

“How lovely to see you, too, Etta,” he says, gingerly easing himself down in his chair. “You’re as charming as ever.”

“I’m only telling the truth, dear.”

“Of course. I would never expect anything else.”

Etta bares her teeth at him, before pushing her glasses back to the top of her nose. One of these days his analyst will welcome him back with a smile and open arms and that will be the day that pigs will fly and gravity will cease to exist. Etta hasn’t been with the service for over forty years for nothing, and there’s a reason that she works with him and nobody else.

“You shouldn’t be so hard on him,” Marjory chimes in, settling down at her own desk adjacent to Etta’s, though Townsend knows she won’t remain at it for long. “It must have been something awful for his face to look like that.”

Marjory seems softer, but Townsend hasn’t worked with her for the past ten years without discovering that, while she might be all warm on the outside, she’s cold hard steel on the inside. She’s efficient and quick, all skills that an administrator should have, but also good gossips have as well. And though it appears as though they fight like siblings, her main partner for trade is Etta.

Townsend puts down his backpack at his feet, unsurprised to see that his login screen is already blinking at him on the computer monitor. Sighing, he types in his username and password, getting both wrong an unbelievable amount of times. Jetlag is killing him, and though it’s only eight in the morning, he would very much like to crawl back into bed until it either passes or he is dead.

By the third try he’s banging on the keyboard loudly, dangerously close to losing some composure. Etta eyes him from her desk across the room, eyebrows almost disappearing into her blonde hair. “Need a little help this morning, Edward?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he growls, managing to successfully login before having to call the security department and explain that it’s just a jet-lagged agent trying to login to the computer, and not some foreign spy.

“It’s probably just the jet-lag,” Marjory explains, as though he hasn’t figured that out himself, and he goes to glare at her but she’s turned away from him to her partner in crime. They look dangerously similar in this early morning light; both women in their sixties with an eerily similar short haircut, though Etta dyes hers blonde whilst Marjory ‘embraces the grey.’ They both wear tailored designer clothes, black lanyards hanging from their necks, one of their cards identifying that they work in the most secure area of the building, in one of the most secure rooms. They’re both short, both slim, and whilst one is openly bitter and the other deceptively sweet, sometimes when they’re talking Townsend can’t tell what is coming from who.

They are a ‘team’ in a very loose sense of the word. As much as he wishes this were his full-time role, there are sometimes other operations that require his attention, as was the case with the most recent mission. But he always returns here. They report only to the Chief Executive, and their little office can only be reached through three key-card secure doors, a fingerprint sensor and a retinal scan. Not even their colleagues know what they do up here all of the time. Much of a spy’s life is need to know, but this is an entirely different level.

“Didn’t you bring your friend back here with you?” Marjory asks suddenly. “I thought she was coming back with you.”

Townsend tries his very best to keep on focusing on the computer screen as he brings up the after action report that he didn’t have the heart to finish on the plane.

“I thought he was going back to the States with her,” Etta tells her. “That’s why I’m rather surprised you’re here this morning.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Etta,” he says tightly, focusing so hard on the words on the screen that they turn into illegible blurs. “Did you hear back from Thompson?

“He’s in Athens until Friday, he says he’ll phone you back then,” she replies without missing a beat. “Now why aren’t you with your friend?”

“Abigail is her name, isn’t it?” Marjory slings across the chasm, getting up from her desk as she does.

“Yes. Abigail Cameron.” Etta is looking at her computer screen but Townsend knows that she’s waiting for his reaction.

“Ah, so it was. Did she get back alright?”

Townsend ignores her, and tries not to think of Abigail Cameron, and especially not the look on her face as he’d walked away.

“Edward?”

“I don’t know,” he says tightly. “I haven’t spoken to her.”

“Why aren’t you with her?”

He rubs at his temples, knowing that Etta won’t let the question go if he doesn’t answer. “Business. She had to go back to her job, and I had to come back to mine.”

Of course it’s not strictly true, but there’s nothing in this world that could make him speak of it, if he could speak of it at all.

“I liked her,” Marjory declares as she stands at the small sink, filling the kettle for one of her numerous cups of tea. “She was nice.”

“Very nice,” Etta agrees. “Very charming. Such lovely manners. Unlike _some_ people.”

“And so pretty as well. Excellent posture.”

“You both only met her for about ten minutes,” Townsend snaps. “I don’t think you know her well enough to be making character judgements.”

Both ladies look at him, distinctly unimpressed. Etta looks particularly done with him. Marjory looks affronted.

“We’re in the business of noticing things, Edward,” she says, throwing down a tea bag into her cup. “Ten minutes was more than adequate. Do you want one?”

“Yes,” he says. Marjory just raises her eyebrow. Townsend sighs. “Please.”

She brings out another cup, puts in another teabag. “Much better. I hope you didn’t lose your manners in Buenos Aries, Edward.”

At the mention of the place he has just escaped from physically, but that he may never escape mentally, he resists the urge to groan.

“And remember she was a liaison here for five months,” Marjory says. “We made plenty of judgments then.”

“She didn’t work on this operation,” Townsend mutters.

“No,” Marjory concedes. “But you know office gossip. We heard and saw things. We always do.”

 _Of course you always bloody do._ There’s such an urge within him to throw his keyboard at the wall, but he refrains. Just.

“How was Buenos Aries?” Etta asks, finally looking away from her screen, making a big show of how interested she is in the answer. “Was it a success? You haven’t said.”

“I’ve been here for all of fifteen minutes,” he says. “I’m sorry if I haven’t gotten into all of the details.”

“Well it’s never stopped you before.”

“It can’t have gone well,” Marjory chimes in. “No operative who has ever had a successful mission ever comes back with such a long face as that.”

“You never know, Marjory. He could be just that good. He tells us so all the time.” But Etta’s voice lets him know that she thinks exactly the opposite.

“Thank you for the faith in me, Etta. It makes me as warm as always.” He sighs. “No, it was not successful. He got away.”

For a moment Etta’s face softens. “And you got hurt?” He stares at her and she shrugs. “You’re favouring your shoulder and you have bruises around your neck and wrists. I may not be a field operative, dear, but I’m a bloody good analyst.”

Of course she is. The best. It’s why she’s trusted on this. There are things he will never be able to hide from her. Marjory brings the cup of green tea to his desk with a biscuit on the side, and he knows there are some things he will never be able to hide from her, either.

“I’ll be fine,” is what he says, and looks at the after-action report once more. He’s stated all the facts, boldly and plainly, but it still looks unfinished. The man got away, it’s as simple as that. He doesn’t have to put in what Abby did – he should, but he doesn’t have to. It’s as though if he doesn’t put it in then he doesn’t have to relive it, can pretend it never happened. It’s neither MI6 nor the CIA’s business anyway.

Townsend takes a sip of the tea, ignoring the way it scalds his throat. It’s just another source of pain to add to the list, and after a second it just blends in with everything else. He could break his rule and eat the biscuit, but he knows he won’t. There’s been far too much rule breaking around recently.

“I don’t doubt it,” Marjory says, finally back at her desk. “How is Abigail?”

“What?” He doesn’t mean for it to sound as sharp as it does, and at least the woman seems to realise that and doesn’t retaliate.

“I’m only asking, Edward. If you got hurt then it only stands to reason that she might have as well.”

“She’s fine,” Townsend sighs, but, though an excellent spy he may be, there’s no hiding anything from the two women he spends most of his days with. He sighs again. “Or she will be.”

“What happened?”

He looks to Etta in surprise. She’s a gossip, but she usually leaves the intimate fact-finding to her friend.

“It’s classified.”

“We have the same clearance level as you,” Marjory interjects.

“We’ll just read about it in the report,” Etta says.

“No.” Townsend’s voice is hard and slices right through their questions. “You won’t.”

He didn’t mean to say it. Etta raises her eyebrows but says nothing, and he knows she never will. She’s loyal to a fault, and it’s not as though he’ll be breaking any of the rules he professes to uphold strictly so much.

Marjory doesn’t say anything about the look that passes between them, but she does say, “I only wanted to know if your Abigail was alright. I was concerned.”

“She isn’t _my_ Abigail, alright?” He snaps. “She’s nobody’s Abigail. She’s just Abigail.”

“Oh.” Marjory’s mouth forms into an _o._ “And is that the problem?”

“Enough,” he says, as close to pleading as he will ever get. “Just let it rest. We have a lot of work to do and little time to do it. Abigail Cameron does not come into that.”

Townsend can’t think of her, because if he thinks of her then he’ll think of what happened, and if he thinks of what happened, then he’ll all he’ll see her is her face, bruised and bloody, and all he’ll feel is the warmth of it beneath his hands as he kept pressure with one hand and smoothed her hair with the other.

“She was good for you,” Etta declares. “Don’t you think so, Marjory?”

“Definitely. You’re different with her around. You should work with her more often.”

He glares at each of them in turn. “For two people who have worked for Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service for over forty years, you still seem awfully confused about the way things work.”

“I just think that if you wanted to work with her, you could. I liked her very much.”

“So, Marjory, are you suggesting that we request CIA liaisons based on the opinions of MI6 administrative assistants?”

She swivels in her chair, peering over her red-rimmed glasses. “First of all, Edward, you can just call me a secretary. I assure you I’m not offended by it. And secondly, of course not. All I’m saying is that the two of you work well together.”

“She’s reckless,” he says. “A loose cannon. We are not alike.”

“No, you aren’t,” Etta says. “And we rather liked the contrast.”

“Agreed. She balanced you out. And you seemed so much happier when she was around.”

Marjory’s voice has gone soft, and he knows she is genuinely concerned for his happiness. He wishes he could appreciate it.

“Well she isn’t around anymore, so-”

“Something more happened than what you’re letting on.” Marjory points her pen accusingly.

“I think you two were a lot closer than you let on,” Etta says. “As much as you like to believe we’re ignorant women, I assure you we’re not.

“I don’t think that,” he says defensively. “And there was nothing going on between us.” Both of them blink at him expectantly, and he focuses on his screen as he mutters, “Or nothing official anyway.”

He expects cries of _I knew it_ and smug smiles, but there’s only silence, and for that he is more grateful than he can express. Thinking of it hurts more than any bullet wound in his shoulder ever will.

“You should phone her now,” Marjory says. “Make sure she’s alright.”

“She’s probably still on the plane,” he says, making it sound like a guess and not a fact he knows for certain after checking the flight tracker. “And there’s nothing to say.”

“Your manners are shocking, have we ever told you that?” Marjory shakes her head, seeming personally aggrieved. They have, in fact, told him many times, but usually he tunes it out the way he tunes out all of their other nonsense. “Didn’t your mother teach you how to treat a lady?”

Etta snorts loudly. “I think she was too busy packing him off to boarding school so she could go holidaying with her friends in Spain to ever have the chance.” She side-eyes him. “Not that he would have listened to her anyway,” she adds, just in case Townsend got the impression that she was being nice.

He sighs deeper and louder than he ever has before. “Well this has been an extremely insightful conversation, ladies, but we do have an important task in hand so if we could just please-”

“Cameron? That’s a legacy name, is it not?”

Townsend counts to five in his head, reaching for his tea again. If the liquid is scalding his mouth then it stops him from saying something he’ll regret to Marjory, who, despite her small stature, could easily kill him with her computer mouse should she choose to. There’s always a little more danger with her. With Etta the feeling is palpable, but Marjory’s intentions are well hidden under sweet smiles and biscuits put on plates

“I’m sure it is,” Etta says, tapping away. “There’s a sister as well isn’t there?”

“Yes! That’s right. Rachel, isn’t it? Though she’s not a Cameron anymore, I don’t think…”

“That’s right. She married another operative. Someone with an alliterative name…”

“Of course. For the life of me I can’t remember what it is.”

“Me neither. It’s right on the tip of my tongue.”

“I know exactly what you mean. It’s just right there and-”

“Morgan,” Townsend interjects, the conversation completely unbearable to him now. “Matthew Morgan was his name.”

Etta snaps her fingers. “That’s it! He disappeared, didn’t he? About two years ago now. CIA has no clue what happened to him.”

“They have some idea,” Townsend says. “But no, nothing is official.”

“Such a bloody shame,” Marjory sighs, shaking her head. “It’s almost certain he’s dead.”

Townsend nods. “He was a good man.”

“I remember him,” Etta says. “He came to you for information. Such a lovely young man.” She shakes her head in a rare display of empathy for another human being. “They have a daughter. He showed me a picture when he was here. He was so proud of her.”

“Her name is Cameron.” Townsend volunteers the information so he doesn’t have to volunteer anything more. He’s heard things from Abby, felt the tremble in her voice as she talked about her family deep in is bones and held her while she cried. It brings a lump to his throat to think that he may never comfort her again.

“A legacy name if I’ve ever heard one.” Marjory nods approvingly. “Did you ever work with the sister?”

“Once.”

“And?”

Townsend considers Rachel, so similar and yet so different to her kid sister. Matthew Morgan had already gone and he’d already heard Abby sob through her nightmares. They were eerily similar in their strength and their determination, but Rachel was more reserved, a more observant (but still less than faithful) follower of the rules. She wasn’t careless and every move she made had good reason. He supposes that she, better than anyone, has less reason to try and tempt fate.

“Different,” he says at last, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Did you get along?”

His confused glance is enough of an answer for Etta because she shrugs and says, without apology, “It’s always important to get along with the family.”

“For the last time, there is nothing going on between Abigail and I!”

Townsend doesn’t mean to shout, but he can’t help it, because thinking about it hurts and he’s reached the end of his very short tether. When she’s here, all Abigail Cameron does is infuriate him and question him and challenge him on every decision he makes. She’s reckless and irresponsible, as has just been witnessed in the last mission, and wholly unpredictable. But what’s most annoying about her is the fact that even when she’s not here she’s in his head, and he can never let her go.

“Why not, Edward?” Marjory’s tone is sharp. “You should settle down. It’s high time.”

“Settling down is not exactly conductive to an operative’s way of life,” he grinds out. “And perhaps the woman in question doesn’t want to settle down. Did you ever think of that?”

But these women fuss around him like grandmothers, and take an interest in his dating life as such. They will not be deterred.

“Why wouldn’t she? I’d say you were quite handsome, and you’re a good operative. What isn’t there to love?”

He feels quite warm at Marjory’s response, until Etta chimes in with, “She’s an American. The bar is considerably lower over there.”

“You do know how to make a man feel special, Etta,” he mumbles.

“There’s no need to be like that, dear.” Etta types away on her keys, not looking up as she says, “You should make more of an effort.”

“You’re incorrigible,” he mutters.

The after-action report is somehow miraculously finished, and he prints it out so he can sign it and send it to the chief, who can then pass it along to the CIA. For a second he wonders what Abby’s written in hers, before dismissing the thought entirely. It’s not as though it matters.

“You’re stubborn,” Marjory says, standing up again, no doubt to get some more tea. “She was so lovely, Edward. Such pretty eyes.”

“Much nicer than the last one you had.”

Townsend feels his heart beat harder in his chest, knowing exactly where Etta is going with this and knowing he can do nothing to stop it.

“What was her name again?” Marjory snaps her fingers. “Catherine. That’s it. She was CIA as well, wasn’t she?”

“Was,” he growls, feeling a blinding headache coming on. “Before she made terrorism her full-time occupation.”

“I never liked her.” Marjory’s face looks as though she has drunk some terribly sour lemonade while chewing a wasp. “Such dark eyes. Haunted, even.”

“You could tell she was a double agent just from looking at her,” Etta declares, then sems to realise what she’s said and says, “Well, from looking at her afterwards. It just made sense.”

It did make sense in hindsight, and every day she’s out there is another reminder to Townsend of the biggest mistake he’s ever made in his life. He was so young and he was foolish, and it’s a mistake he’s damn sure he’ll never make again.

“The things she does don’t even bear thinking about,” Marjory shivers.

No, they don’t. If Edward thinks too much about them then he has an urge to eat a lot of sugar or drink a lot of alcohol or start smoking again after all these years. She was still a CIA agent when he met her, and her eyes were dark but her laugh was light and he thought that one cancelled out the other. She left long before he found out what she truly was, but not before getting something that she needed – to this day he still doesn’t know what it was. Screw his former feelings, seeing the trail of her devastation makes him sure that he’d tear her head from her shoulders if he could.

“Especially considering that they think she now has a son.”

Etta’s casual volunteering of the information has Townsend narrowing his eyes, pushing away from the desk and coming to stand in front of the whiteboard that has all known Circle members on it. It’s a depressingly small list, though it’s not from lack of effort on their part. For years they have been tracking and tracing Circle movements, but it’s almost an impossible task. Almost. Edward Townsend likes to believe he’s up for it.

Catherine’s picture stares back at him. They pinned up this picture almost ten years ago now, right when their little unit was formed. Of course it had been known for years then that she was rogue, and not being able to exact his revenge had been painful for him. But it will come. He will have his chance. Her days are numbered, most definitely.

It’s her CIA ID that they have, and the picture is a flattering one on her, even though ID pictures should never be flattering on anybody. Her red hair falls straight around her face, and the contrast between her porcelain skin and dark eyes is handsomely highlighted in the camera’s light. She seems defiant, chin raised as if to say _just try and stop me._ It’s his penance to look at this face every day, to remind himself that the threats don’t always say that they hate you, sometimes they tell you they love you and then try to kill you afterwards.

“A son?” He says, unable to picture Catherine as the mothering type. She’s only ever does anything for herself. Her son must serve some kind of purpose to her, if it’s true. “Are they sure?”

“Yes. You must have been in Romania when the intelligence came through.” Etta looks almost apologetic. “I’m sorry, I thought you’d read it.”

Romania. So only a few weeks then. He shakes his head. “Do we have any proof?”

“See for yourself.” Etta digs through a file on her desk, before handing him a 6x4 photograph of Catherine with a young boy, taken at what appears to be an outside café somewhere. Catherine is smiling at the camera knowingly – she wanted to be seen, for the surveillance to know that she knew – and Townsend wouldn’t be surprised if this were a con, if not for the eyes from the boy who sits across from her. They are dark, and unmistakably his mother’s.

“Oh they are definitely mother and son,” Marjory says over his shoulder. “Those eyes. I’d know them anywhere.”

 _Yes, so would I,_ Townsend thinks, but does not say. “Do we have a name?”

“Zachary, I’m sure. This is the first sighting of him they’ve had so goodness knows where he’s been all these years.”

“Is that all?”

Marjory is the one who answers him. “She didn’t exactly register the birth, Edward. Or if she did, she didn’t do it under her own name. I’m searching for it, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope.”

He peers closer at the picture of the boy. There’s something familiar about him that he cannot place. Perhaps it’s just Catherine. All these memories coming rushing back to him today is wearing him out.

“Do we have an age?”

Etta looks unimpressed. “If we don’t have a birth certificate, then how do you expect us to have an age? Besides, the boy isn’t any of our concern, at least not yet.” Townsend presses her with a glance. She sighs. “Our estimate is about fifteen”

Fifteen. Before he met her then. It would be just like her to have a son hidden somewhere. She’s cold and ruthless like that. What she can’t control she loves to destroy. It’s in her nature.

“Do we know where she keeps him hidden?”

Etta looks concerned at his interest in the boy, but there’s something about him that he can’t explain. “I’d give you three guesses, but even you would only need the one.”

“Blackthorne,” he says grimly. This bloody school. _These_ bloody schools he should say, for the Gallagher Academy is exactly the same. Only at least they aren’t recruiting terrorists. They just produce agents like Abigail Cameron who think they’re invincible and can take over the world. Though Townsend highly suspects that she was already like that, and the Gallagher Academy had nothing to do with it.

“She’s always bloody one step ahead,” he says wearily, going to sit back down at his desk.

“Are you alright?” Marjory asks, which is expected, but Etta is throwing him a worried glance, too, and he knows he must look truly awful for there to be even a scrap of concern from her thrown his way.

“I’m fine,” he says grimly, but he’s really not. His shoulder aches and his head aches and his heart aches. And all he’d really, really like to do is crawl into his bed and pull the sheets over his eyes and pretend the world is a better place than it is. But that’s not an option. The only option is to keep going and pretend everything is fine.

If this were _before_ then he’d text her. _The two grandmothers I work with are explaining all of your good qualities to me. Should I tell them they’re mistaken?_ A week ago he would have texted her that. A week ago he wasn’t angry with her. A week ago he hadn’t felt her blood on his hands or gotten her name caught in his throat as he watched her fall.

He misses her, but he’s angry at her more. The best way to do this job is to not get attached, and he’s only gone and done it twice. The failure hurts a lot, like everything else.

“I’ve had contact from Patterson. It’s good news,” Etta announces suddenly, and this perks Townsend right up. Patterson has been on the hunt for a Circle member who’s gone rogue for the past three months. Good news from her means good news from all of them.

“Right then.” He sits up in his chair, straightening his keyboard and swallowing the rest of his tea. Work is all he needs, and this is an important task. This’ll do. It’ll take his mind off Abigail, at least for a little while. He claps his hands together, motioning for Etta to share with them what she has learnt. “Let’s get to work.”


End file.
